The management of working horses on the Battle Abbey manor of Barnhorn, 1325-1494

This aim of this paper is to examine how a single English demesne (the personal farm of a seigniorial lord, as opposed to the land of their peasant tenants) managed its stock of working horses over a period of almost 170 years. It leverages the exceptionally rich body of surviving manorial accounts from the Battle Abbey manor of Barnhorn to look very closely, not only at how the demesne managed its horses, but how it operated within the context of the larger Battle Abbey estate.